Thaindian News

Shimla, May 24 (IANS) They both belong to Shimla and are union cabinet ministers but when it comes to begging for votes for their Congress party, they belong to differing camps.

While Virbhadra Singh has no qualms about folding his hands and bowing his head before the commoners to seek votes for the party in the Shimla Municipal Corporation elections, scheduled May 27, his colleague, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma believes “it’s too lousy a job for a central minister”.

Taking a jibe at Sharma here Thursday, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Virbhadra Singh said: “I am a worker of the Congress party.” To seek vote, Singh even addressed party meetings here Thursday.

“I am a senior minister. My rank in the cabinet is seventh. I have no ego at all. I am a (party) worker first, then an MP and then a minister,” Singh told reporters.

His supplicant’s posture came when he was asked about Sharma’s assertion before the reporters a day earlier that canvassing in civic body elections doesn’t behove the central ministers.

The five-time chief minister and a five-time MP, Virbhadra Singh said: “I am a grassroots worker. I have risen from the ground and my roots are still firmly stuck here.”

Sharma told reporters here Wednesday “it does not behove a union minister to go for a campaign in the municipal elections”.

Contrary to him, Singh said: “I am here for canvassing. There is no ban on a union minister to canvass. Moreover, the elections are being held on the party symbol.”

Sharma, who was on a daylong visit, did not address any public meeting in the town but he tried to convey the message that the Congress would protect the interests of the people. Singh had entered the Lok Sabha in 1962.

–Asian-News Service
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